Welcome to BAY! Body Awareness Yoga opened its doors on 2/2/2024. This particular date was chosen to open BAY because the way we count, the numbers represent 444. These numbers represent, to Colette, acknowledgement that she was on her right path as she searched for clarity and direction as she navigated through a major life transition.
444 means you are on the right path!
You are on the right path by taking personalized yoga classes.
Come for Yoga
and get so much more
Ever feel intimidated in a big class or thought yoga wasn’t right for you or not the “right” body type or flexibility level? You are on the right path to debunk all those myths. Yoga is not just about movement. It involves stillness, breathing. REST.
Through her work as a psychotherapist, specializing in talk therapy with those suffering with anxiety, grief and loss and various forms of trauma, including childhood trauma, she found that many of her clients were either unable or unwilling to verbalize their experiences for fear of reliving those painful memories as they described them.
Then she discovered the benefits of …
Somatic Healing
Body Awareness Yoga offers Somatic Healing services through:
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Yoga
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Personalized Guided Visualizations
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EMDR
Body Awareness Yoga
Body Awareness Yoga (BAY) wellness center offers individualized yoga classes in a private residence in the East Bay community of downtown San Leandro that are personalized to fit your body, your breath, and your pace. Modifications and variations are provided, and hands-on (above waist, below knees) adjustments may be offered in a trauma-informed manner.
Colette’s personal and clinical background in trauma healing through somatic work is what creates space for her clients’ breakthroughs.
There are many proven benefits of regular Yoga*, including:
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Regular practice reduces cortisol, a stress hormone
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Improves memory
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Breathing exercises in yoga (pranayama) help with relaxation and improve focus
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Reduces inflammation
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Improves heart rate variability (HRV)
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Restores muscle tonus in a vulva owner’s pelvic area
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Improves the mind-body connection
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Increases flexibility
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*Source: Science of Yoga, Ann Swanson
Yoga is not about getting into a particular pose in the most flexible way. Body Awareness Yoga is about listening to your body, guided by your breath, to move in a way that feels good within and to your body. Your private yoga practice is for you to explore the way your body moves in a non-judgmental manner, in your home or our East Bay home studio.
The class will begin with seated meditation, intention setting, and bringing awareness to the breath, followed by a series of poses (asanas), and ending with a resting pose where the student will rest, allowing the benefits of the practice to register in the body and nervous system. The class will end with gratitude given to our body for the practice.
Personalized Guided Visualizations
It may seem impossible to quiet anxious, self-defeating thoughts, ruminating on and obsessing about things out of our control. Maybe it is an overactive or overly stimulated mind that seems to find no rest, even though the body is exhausted.
After a brief consultation, Colette will discuss your perceived blockages with you and provide guided meditation and directed breathing exercises tailored to removing obstacles that prevent you from obtaining your own level of enlightenment.
BAY studio photo of Vajrayogini, known as, among many things, a remover of obstacles. Revered among Buddhists and Hindus as the goddess of wisdom and knowledge.
Photo: Colette Katuala
About Colette
Colette, a career social worker with a graduate degree (MSW) from UC Berkeley, has been a yogi since her graduate-school days at Cal. Throughout her career in social welfare, working for mostly underserved and under-resourced communities and then training those who provided these services, she began to focus on the clinical aspects of healing. Since 2014 she has had a psychotherapy practice specializing in talk therapy.
With Congolese father and Creole roots, Colette is engaged in her own journey of healing from systemic and environmental racism.
After working with trauma survivors and those with anxiety and phobias, she has come to understand that, in some cases, talk therapy is not the most effective trauma-informed method of healing for clients. Colette became trained in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), an evidence-based practice that uses a structured protocol for the treatment of past traumas (PTSD) and anxiety.
EMDR
The Somatic interventions of EMDR engage Body Awareness as a psychotherapeutic intervention that addresses the connection between the body, the mind, and behaviors using bilateral stimulation and body scans (measuring and noticing sensations in the body during guided imagery).
Colette believes in the dynamic healing power of somatic therapies such as YOGA, meditation, and EMDR, to heal body and soul.
Related Credentials and Affiliations
RTY200 Yoga Alliance Member
EMDR trained
California LCSW #29554
Member, Bay Area Association of Black Social Workers
Pricing
Colette is committed to having her services available to all. Pricing is comparable to similar services available in similar residential ZIP codes. Travel fees are extra.
BLACK-OWNED BUSINESS
FEMALE-OWNED BUSINESS
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What have people said about yoga with Colette so far?
‘Very relaxing, the most relaxed I’ve felt in a while. Considerate of my beginner status.”
“This is how I would like to start my day every day. With tea, inside a beautiful space, stretching my body and taking deep breaths … feeling less rushed and more able to tackle tasks.”
“Thank you for being patient and helpful during the poses and transitions. You were kind and gentle and made me feel at ease. I enjoyed the one-on-one support.”
“I enjoyed the class!”
“I felt supported to move through the practice, but comfortable to do the poses in a way that felt best for me and my body.”
“The space was beautiful, safe, and serene.”